Archive for the ‘baked goods’ Category

Oats are tricky if you have Celiac disease or are gluten-intolerant. Oats are contaminated by wheat during harvesting, with wheat and oats harvested together and transported on the same truck. When we began our gluten-free journey almost 11 years ago there were no certified gluten-free oats, so people made faux-oatmeal cookies using quinoa flakes and other ingredients. Now, however, Bob’s Red Mill, among others, has certified gluten-free oats in every grocery store and health food store (plus on Amazon). Some people with Celiac/gluten-intolerance are also intolerant to the very similar protein found in oats, but my daughters and I aren’t among those. If you haven’t had oats since becoming gluten-free, please be cautious and try just a little to determine if you are sensitive to them.

Add water, egg, vanilla to creamed mixture, and beat until well combined.

In a separate medium-sized bowl, combine flour and dry ingredients, and whisk together.

Add flours to the creamed mixture and stir until just combined.

Add oats to the mixer bowl, and again stir until just combined. Don’t over-work.

Add the mix-in (we prefer chocolate chips and mini chocolate chips), and fold into the batter.

Use a small cookie scoop to scoop out cookies, and set on cookie sheet leaving 1 1/2″ between cookies. Don’t overcrowd or you’ll end up with one giant cookie.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are just becoming browned. Allow to cool for 5 minutes on cookie sheets, then let the remainder cool on a wire rack. Eat or store in a cookie jar or airtight container until devoured. Once cooled these are sturdy and travel very well in lunches.

This is adapted from Rachael’s adaptation of a Nigella Lawson recipe, and has been made gluten-free. It’s delicious, slightly sticky, and so rich and impossible to only eat one slice. I don’t think it’s going to last very long in our house! If you like chocolate and orange together, don’t pass on this recipe!

(I should admit here that I’m not a huge fan of chocolate and orange together, and I loved it. I just remember the girls loving those Terry’s Chocolate Oranges for Christmas, and thought they’d like it. They did. The smell of this baking was also divine!)

In a stand mixer, cream butter, sugar, and molasses/corn syrup. Grate the zest with a microplane grater into this mixture and beat (that gets it really mixed up well).

In a separate bowl combine flour, starch, baking powder, xanthan gum, and cocoa. Whisk together so it’s well combined.

Add 1/3 dry ingredients to the creamed butter mixture, then add one egg, another third flour mix, another eggs, and then the rest of the flour mix. Scrape down the edges several times while doing this.

Finally, add the juice of one orange, and beat until well combined, scraping down the sides of the . It’s not a pretty batter, it’s rather a wet, messy batter.

Pour and scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 40-50 minutes. Because the center is so moist, a toothpick isn’t ever going to come out clean. Instead touch the center of the loaf. If it’s firm, the bread is done. If it’s super moist and sticky, give it 5 more minutes, then try again.

Let cool on a wire rack for 5-10 minutes, then you can slice and try it. We went through several slices as soon as it was ready to cut. Yum!!

I love toffee. Making it scares me, and (quite honestly), Fool’s Toffee scares me, too. But, sometimes cravings take precedence over fear. Please take note of the fact that the toffee is HOT. As in, if you get any of the toffee on your skin, it will cause severe burns with blistering. It’s a bad, bad thing. I wouldn’t make Fool’s Toffee without an off set spatula and burn bandages. However, 11 years ago I severely burned two fingers, and then I didn’t make it again until this winter, so that might be part of my decisions.

This is a delicious gfcf, gluten free, family-friendly recipe! It can also be (if you double check ingredients!) a wheat free, dairy free, soy free, egg free, peanut free, fish free, shellfish free, and vegan/vegetarian recipe. While this can be made dairy-free, the toffee works better if you can use dairy.

Line a cookie sheet with a Silpat or parchment paper. Lay out the S’Morables along the cookie sheet.

In a medium-sized pot over medium heat, combine butter/margarine and brown sugar. Stir as the butter melts using a silicone spatula. Bring to a boil and stir constantly as it boils for 3 minutes, then remove from heat.

Pour toffee very carefully over the graham crackers. Spread carefully using an off set spatula, being very careful not to get any toffee on your fingers. Spread over all the graham crackers. It’s better to have some that goes beyond the graham cracker sides than to have some graham crackers without toffee.

Put the toffee coated graham crackers into the preheated oven for 5 minutes.

Remove from oven and sprinkle with the chocolate chips. Allow to sit for a moment or two, and then use the off set spatula to spread the melted chocolate chips, again being very, very careful to not burn your fingers.

Sprinkle the top with chopped pecans or other nuts.

Allow the Fool’s Toffee to cool completely, then chop into rough sections using a chef’s knife. Store in an airtight container until devoured.

This recipe is my tweaks of this MOMables recipe. Their version is dairy free, but mine has dairy, as I made it with what was on hand. The MOMables folks also have a tree-nut free alternative in their recipe. If you haven’t visited their site, I strongly recommend visiting and poking around.

This is a super-easy cracker recipe. A good one to start out your gf baking, and also a good one for the kids to make on their own. Choosing the shape of their crackers was fun for my kids. To me these taste like a mix of Mary’s Gone Crackers and what I remember of Wheat Thins.

Preheat oven to 350F and line your cookie sheet with silpat, Reynolds Release, or parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl (not your stand mixer), combine everything from flour through chia seeds. Use a large fork or whisk to combine well.

Melt the butter or coconut oil, and drizzle over the flour mixture. Drizzle the water over the flour as well. Mix first with the fork, then knead with your hands to make it form a ball.

Put plastic wrap on your counter, place the dough on top of it, and place another sheet of plastic wrap on top of that. Use a rolling pin to roll it to be approximately 1/8” thick, but it can be thicker if necessary to avoid the dough ripping.

Use some cookie cutters to make cute shapes (I made angels and penguins as we’re in the time running up to Christmas) or use a pizza wheel or knife to make squares/rectangles or another shape. Transfer the cut shapes to the lined cookie sheet. I found it was easier to transfer the shapes by popping them out of the cookie cutter directly onto the cookie sheet.

After making one set of crackers, make a ball out of the remaining dough, re-roll, and cut another set. Repeat until all the dough is used up.

Bake on the cookie sheet for 18-20 minutes, until the edges become golden brown. Let cool, then transfer to an airtight container for storage.

My dad’s mom, my Nana, made some incredibly delicious food. Honestly, most of her best foods were desserts. Her Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls rocked, and Angel Pie is a family tradition. These Lemon Squares were another of her beloved desserts. I don’t make them often, though, as my kids aren’t big fans of them. As with my Lemon Poppyseed Muffins, that means that I share them at work or church eat them all myself.

I wasn’t able to make this recipe work properly when we were dairy-free. However, there are better dairy-free margarines out there now than there were the last time I tried. If I were to try to make these dairy-free/gfcf, I’d definitely use something like the Earth Balance sticks – the Fleishmann’s Unsalted failed in earlier tests. As the filling contains 4 eggs, it can’t be made egg-free.

In a stand mixer, cream the softened butter and sugar. Add 2 cups flour and xanthan gum, mixing until just combined. It will be more like pie crust, and rather crumbly. Press into the bottom of an ungreased glass 9×13″ pan.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until firm and golden brown on the top. Set aside to cool.

In another bowl, whisk together the remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1/3 cup flour. Whisk in the eggs and lemon juice (and zest, if using). Pour over the cooled, baked crust.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the filling has started to set into a pudding-like consistency. The bars will firm up more as they cool.

After they have cooled for at least 10 minutes, dust the top with confectioner’s sugar. Slice after they have completely cooled. It’s hard to wait, but the lemon filling will ooze unless it has completely cooled. Keep lemon squares in the fridge or in a cool area of the house, as they won’t keep their shape as well if they are warm.

I love, love, love these muffins. Happily Sadly, no one else in my family likes them, so I have to eat them all myself bring them to the office to share. These are delicious. The big tip I have is to find a shop where you can buy poppy seeds for an affordable price, otherwise this is a total luxury. Amazon has some reasonably priced poppy seeds as a part of their add-on program, if you’re buying $25 worth of items from them.

In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Change the mixer speed to low, then slowly add the flour mixture until they are just combined.

Using a cookie scoop or ice cream scoop, fill each cupcake liner with batter, then bake 18-22 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

Allow the muffins to cool. Once they’re cool, make the glaze. Combine lemon juice, confectioner’s sugar, and zest. Whisk together. If it’s thin, add a tablespoon at a time of confectioner’s sugar until no longer thin.

These are delicious. My daughters all love them, and we found out accidentally when my 10 year old tried to make a batch that even if you mix everything together (rather than following the directions) they’re still delicious. They’ll look disgusting, but they’re still delicious. She was still proud to take one to lunch, as seen in this Turkey lunch. There are a couple made properly in this Snowflake Lunch.

I’ve been reading everything Rachael at Tales of a Monkey, a Bit, and a Bean writes, and love her attitude. I’ve been wanting to make her Hot Fudge Pie. I haven’t had a good excuse to make it. Thanksgiving turned into that excuse – I have a certain child who dislikes all fruit pies, and two children who don’t like pecan. So, of course, I made apple, cherry, and hot fudge. My mom makes a divine Kahlua chocolate chip pecan pie, so I ate that, too. No pumpkin pie – none of the gluten-free folks really seem to love that. I only had to tweak a few things in this recipe to make it gf, which made it much easier.

A special hat tip to this recipe – my niece and nephews dislike anything they realize is gluten-free. Plus, 2 don’t like pie. 3/4 of them ate this and loved it, including one who doesn’t like pie. Despite there being 4 gf pies and 4 “regular” pies, we had less than half of this very rich chocolate pie left.

To make the crust, first pulverize the graham crackers in a food processor. Next, melt the butter in the microwave. In a large bowl, combine butter, cracker crumbs, and sugar. It will barely hold together.

To make the pie filling, preheat oven to 350F. Melt butter and chocolate in a glass, microwavable bowl, stirring after every minute in the microwave so you don’t overheat the ingredients. (You can also use a double boiler if you prefer)

Whisk sugar into the butter/chocolate mixture, then whisk in the flour, salt, and vanilla. In a smaller bowl, beat eggs. Whisk the eggs into the chocolate mixture.

Pour the chocolate mixture into the graham cracker crust. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes. When a toothpick is inserted into the center of the pie, it will still be moist when it’s done cooking.

Allow to cool, then serve with homemade whipped cream. Watch out – this is very rich – cut thin slices!

This recipe is based on Martha Stewart’s Meringue Swirls, mixed with my grandmother’s Snowdrops recipe. Our current oven is the only oven I’ve ever had that made Snowdrops fail. My middle daughter has a subscription to Martha Stewart Living, and tried to make her swirls. It was a mixed bag – she loved the colors, but disliked the orange zest. She also disliked the lack of chocolate, and though there should be more color. After some starts and stops, these rainbow meringues, called Unicorn Poop in our house, were born.

As with all meringues, we recommend making these on clear, dry days. Making meringues on humid days will lead to sticky meringues, and nobody likes that.

Using the metal bowl from your stand mixer, use a regular wire to whisk together egg whites and sugar. Using a paring knife, then split the half of the vanilla bean in half long-ways and scrape the seeds out and into the bowl. They will look like a lot of little black dots.

Pour about 2 inches of water into a medium pot, and put that over medium heat. Put your metal stand mixer bowl on top of the pot of hot water (as if using it as a double boiler) and whisk together for a couple minutes, until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture begins to get warm.

Return the stand mixer bowl to the stand mixer, and use the whisk attachment to begin beating the eggs. Add the salt and Cream of Tartar to the egg mixture. Continue to beat for about 5 minutes, until it’s glossy and forms a stiff peak (a good test is when you lift the top of the stand mixer – if the meringue holds it’s shape, it’s at the right consistency).

Prep a gallon sized zip top bag to make the meringues. Using a small paint brush dipped in the food coloring, paint stripes up the sides of the bag. Next, scoop the meringue mixture into the zip-top bag, and seal the top. Clip the end off one corner of the bag, and pipe small swirls onto the lined cookie sheet. Leave an inch and a half or so between each swirl. If using, sprinkle the sparkly sugar on top of the swirls now, before going into the oven.

Bake at 200F for an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half. Start checking at an hour and 15, and see if the meringue is hard. If not, leave it in for a little longer. Due to oven differences and humidity levels, sometimes the meringues won’t be hard at an hour and a half, in which case, keep it in a little longer until they are.

Store in an airtight container for a week or two, if they last that long.

This is an adaptation of my earlier pizza crust recipe. I’ve shrunk the recipe and adapted it a bit for lunchbox pizza crusts. This makes 8-9 lunch-sized pizzas

This is, by far, my favorite pizza crust recipe. It’s crispy, hard to mess up, delicious, and doesn’t scream “gluten-free”. My kids have all had friends over for pizza nights, and there aren’t many leftovers. I’ve always been a proponent of individual pizzas. Perhaps that’s because my family of four prefers 4 types of pizzas, but I still think it’s a good idea.

Pour the dry ingredients (through salt) into the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix for a few moments so they are well combined.

Add the olive oil and vinegar to the water/milk combo. Pour the liquid into the flour mixture. Beat on medium speed for a couple minutes, until it forms a big ball. Pour 1-2 TBS of olive oil into a small bowl.

Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop out blobs of dough – it will be sticky. Plop the dough onto the lined baking sheet(s), dip your fingers in the olive oil, and use your fingers to stretch the dough out. Press and stretch until the dough is thin and shaped as desired. I can usually fit 4-5 on one cookie sheet.

Bake WITHOUT TOPPINGS for 10-15 minutes. They should be golden brown around the edges. If you are not using all of them immediately, then allow to cool on a baking rack and freeze, with wax paper or cling wrap between each crust.

Return to the oven and bake for another 10 minutes until bubbly and hot. Allow to cool for 3-5 minutes, then slice and pop into a lunch box. Ours fit really well in our Easy Lunchboxes. You can check out some of our lunchbox fun over at Bentos for A Gaggle of Girls.